Not the best night in the world. H texted me, inviting me to the pub with his fellow students. With some misgivings, I went. They're a mixed bunch, including a musician who might collaborate with me sometime.

One called Mark sat down next to me. I've met his kind a million times - regards discussion as a game to be won with verbal tricks. He started spouting racist idiocy, and parried objections with meaningless distinctions and demands for definitions. And this man wants to be a teacher. Of psychology.

I was very upset by this character, and things weren't help when I found my bike had been stolen. H and I walked to the cinema, but sat for 90 minutes before the film, drinking and talking about happiness and selfishness, selling out and living with yourself when you've done it.

Then we watched Sideways. Perhaps it was my mood, but I found the film to be a tedious overlong collection of stock comic situations - without much actual comedy.

He walked me home. He hugged me outside my house, and just for a few seconds I felt like there was some point in going on.